User input devices and interfaces have been growing rapidly to meet the demand of new types of computing devices. More recently, tablet-based personal computers and hand-held computers have become popular. These devices typically have a writing surface that converts movement of a stylus across the surface into electronic ink. This ink can be recognized and converted into text, or can be stored in an electronic ink format.
For example, the Microsoft WINDOWS brand XP Tablet PC Edition operating system provides a data entry user interface, sometimes referred to as the text input panel, the Tablet PC input panel or “TIP,” through which a user can employ a stylus to enter data into a computer. This type of user interface falls into the broader category of data entry graphical user interfaces, and may be referred to as a data input panel. Some data input panels also may provide a “soft” keyboard surface that displays the characters of a conventional keyboard. If the user employs a stylus to tap on the display of a key with this type of keyboard, then the computer will receive the character associated with that key as input data. Other types of data input panels may have specialized input surfaces. For example, some user interfaces may provide a plurality of letter-sized writing surfaces for receiving characters in an East Asian alphabet as input.
While these types of data input panel increase the usefulness of computers that employ a stylus input device, there are still some inconveniences associated with conventional data input panels. For instance, data input panels are generally specifically invoked by a user in a manner that is difficult or inconvenient. In order to enter data into an application using a data input panel, the user manually activates the data input panel from outside of the application. Many computer users are unfamiliar with data input panels, however, and may overlook or not know how to invoke this resource, rendering such a resource effectively “hidden” from the novice user.
Additionally, because the data input panel is a graphical user interface invoked separately from the application, it typically is displayed separately from the application as well. In some situations, the user interface may be overlaid onto the displayed application itself. While this arrangement allows the user to enter data close to its destination in the application, the user interface may inadvertently obscure the destination or adjacent destinations. Even if the user interface does not initially obscure a desired destination for entered data, however, the user may need to constantly relocate the user interface as new data is entered into the application, to prevent the user interface from obscuring the new insertion points for that data. With still other types of data input panels, the user interface may be “docked” in a space below the application. While positioning the data input panel in this fashion ensures that it will not prevent the user from viewing a desired destination for new data, it is inconvenient for the user to continuously move the stylus back-and-forth between the application and the data input panel to both control the application and enter data into the application.